1) A group of dedicated and passionate youth baseball leaders in
Poulsbo are trying to decide if there’s enough interest — and
volunteers — to put together a bid to be a possible host for the
2012 Babe Ruth World Series for 14-year-olds. They’re meeting
Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Poulsbo Yacht Club (18129 Fjord
Drive NE). North Kitsap Babe Ruth did such a good job hosting 2000
and 2008 regional events that they’ve been asked to consider
hosting a World Series.

2) While on the subject of bids, Gold Mountain Golf Club and the
University of Washington have been asked to re-submit a bid to host
an NCAA Golf Championship. The course hosted the 2007 NCAA West
Regional and will do it again this year. If the NCAA awards the
championship to the Bremerton facility, it would likely be in 2012
or 2013, said Scott Alexander, director of golf at Gold
Mountain.

3) If you put together a list of top men’s fastpitch pitchers
from Kitsap County, Don Duzenski would be on it. Duzenski recently
passed away. Here’s his
obit. Duzenski, like his brother Bernie “Punk” Duzesnki, had a
nasty drop. It was the kind of pitch that broke catcher’s thumbs
and left batters wondering why their hands hurt so much after
making contact — if you made contact — with his pitch. I never had
the pleasure of playing with Don Duzenski, but he was still one of
the top pitchers and a feared hitter when he came out of a long
retirement to pitch for a season in the 1990s.

4) Bremerton bobsledder Bree Schaaf’s not our only possible
Winter Olympian.
Lindsay Wagner, one of the top figure skaters in the country,
isn’t a native, but the 18-year-old used to spend her summers in
Kitsap County. Her grandfather, Mike James, is the former head
ranger at Scenic Beach State Park. An Army brat, she still
considers Kitsap County as close to a permanent home as she’s had
even though she’s listed from Alexandria, Va. Wagner will compete
in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane next week (the
men compete this weekend) with the top two earning berths to the
2010 Vancouver Olympics.

As for Schaaf, she’ll know her Olympic fate after Saturday’s
World Cup bobsled competition in St. Moritz, Switzerland. If my
math is right, the U.S. currently holds a 21-point lead over Canada
in the team race. Whoever finishes on top will qualify three sleds
to the Olympics; the other country gets just two. Germany’s all but
wrapped up the No. 1 spot. Schaaf is currently 8th overall.
Teammates Shauna Rohback and Erin Pac are 4-5. Canada has the Nos.
2, 3 and 10 bobsledders going into St. Moritz.

5) Wonder where Kasey Dunn lands after all of the Seahawks’
shuffling? Here’s hoping the former three-sport star from North
Kitsap winds up back in Seattle, where he’s been the running backs
coach the past two years after coaching college football for 15
years. His former high school quarterback, Kirk Parrish, is the
Seahawks college scouting coordinator.

“…A group of dedicated and passionate youth baseball leaders in Poulsbo are trying to decide if there’s enough interest — and volunteers — to put together a bid to be a possible host for the 2012 Babe Ruth World Series for 14-year-olds. They’re meeting Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m.///”

Between the meeting, and e-mails and phone calls from people that couldn’t make the meeting, we’ve decided to at least move forward in the process for now. It’s a HUGE undertaking, so we’ll need a lot of help from the community and sponsors…!

Good!
Line up what you need, post it and see what happens. I think the community will step up to the plate and do everything they can to help.
Baseball is commendable, to me, as the one field sport the entire family can play together for fun and entertainment … and used to at state and local parks…